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Today has an interesting date. I wouldn’t mention it, however, except that there won’t be another like it for many years.

Having mentioned it, I can’t think of anything interesting to say about it.

Having nothing interesting to say about it, I did some Google research. I came across this little exchange on Yahoo! Answers:

Question: What word do you use when all numbers in the date are the same? For example, tomorrow is the 8/8/2008. is there a word for this numerical phenomenon? I’m in Australia. Its the 7th now.

Answer:666 called the devil’s number…………….

Answer: August.

Answer: Umm… isnt the day after tomorrow the eighth?

*

There’s a surprising amount of stupidity on the internet.

12.12.12

I assumed there are only twelve occasions in a century when the numbers in a date are the same e.g. 1/1/1, 2/2/2 etc., but I read elsewhere – on the internet, of course – that there are 14. The writer cited 1/11/11 and 11/11/1 but what about 11/1/11 and 1/11/1? And isn’t it cheating because 1. There should be a zero in front of the ones and 1.1. One is not the same number as eleven?

If I use those arguments, I have a little problem myself: I lose nine dates i.e. 01/01/01. 02/02/02, etc.

12/12/12

The best source of information for today’s date was Wikipedia. I can’t guarantee its accuracy, but I can repeat it:

Twelve! (Photo credit: Mrs Logic)

12 is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13. (I’m pretty sure that’s right.)

The word twelve is the largest number with a single-morpheme name in English. (You get no argument from me.)

Twelve is a composite number, the smallest number with exactly six divisors, its divisors being 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. Twelve is also a highly composite number, the next one being 24. It is the first composite number of the form p2q; a square-prime, and also the first member of the (p2) family in this form. 12 has an aliquot sum of 16 (133% in abundance). Accordingly, 12 is the first abundant number (in fact a superabundant number) and demonstrates an 8 member aliquot sequence; {12,16,15,9,4,3,1,0} 12 is the 3rd composite number in the 3-aliquot tree. The only number which has 12 as its aliquot sum is the square 121. Only 2 other square primes are abundant (18 and 20). (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…)

The duodenum (from Latin duodecim, “twelve”) is the first part of the small intestine, that is about twelve inches (30 cm) long. More precisely, this section of the intestine was measured not in inches but in fingerwidths. In fact, in German the name of the duodenum is Zwölffingerdarm and in Dutch the name is twaalfvingerige darm, both meaning “twelve-finger bowel”. (Gross but fascinating.) (See what I did there? Made a little number 12 joke.)

12 appears a lot in religion and mythology. (That last bit was paraphrased because there’s a massive chunk that I’m not going to c+p. I want you to still like me after this post.) (There’s an even bigger chunk about twelve in sports but, yawn…)

Most calendar systems have twelve months in a year. The Chinese go one better and use a 12 year cycle for time-reckoning called Earthly Branches. (I have to take Wikipedia’s word for that; I’ve never seen one on the high street.)

Twelfth Night is a play by William Shakespeare. (Speaking of which, can’t forget ye olde Twelve Days of Christmas. But the less said about that, the better.) (Twelfth Night in 1996 starred Helena Bonham Carter; HBC was in Novocaine with Kevin Bacon, giving her a Bacon Number of 1. Kevin Bacon is the key component in Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. From AR15: OK, this is a trivia game that takes its name from the Movie “Six Degrees of Separation”, which refers to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in six steps or fewer. There you have it: today’s date belongs to Kevin Bacon.)

Films:

12

12 Angry Men (1957 and 1997)

Cheaper by the Dozen (Oddly, no mention here of a re-make…)

Ocean’s Twelve (Baffling sequel, redeemed only by Brad Pitt. He didn’t have to do anything, just look gorgeous)

12 Monkeys (Brad Pitt again, proving he can act as well as look gorgeous)

The Dirty Dozen

12 Rounds

Twelve

(No Twelfth Night. Wikipedia’s obviously not a Shakespeare buff.)

Today’s post has been brought to you by the Number Twelve, and by a whiff of desperation.

12.12.12 is an important date today in the States as we are having a giant concert for the victims of Superstorm Sandy at Madison Square Garden in New York City complete with Sir Paul McCartney, and New Jersey notables such as Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. New York artists such as Mary J. Blige will also appear. It will be a coming together of New York’s and New Jersey’s finest to raise money in a Robin Hood concert for their home states.

Brilliant job you have put down here … all the information.
Still the world is around – and there will be more awkward dates to come … I’m sure
And feel a lot more stupid after melt all this 12 information and I will never remember it neither.

I enjoyed learning new stuff about 12. But isn’t the square root of 121, 11? Or am I reading it wrong? Anyway, thanks. I never tried this kind of post, but I do know that the greek word tristadekaphobia means fear of 13th.

A dodecahedron is a loverly word, and it is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. I particularly like the great stellated dodecahedron, being as it is a star and very topical this time of year. It is composed of 12 intersecting pentagrammic faces, with three pentagrams meeting at each vertex. See here
🙂

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I am a little fat. I like food; what can I say? I have dull hair: mousey. I don’t wear much make-up and have no need of a dressing table. If I look like a bag lady, I chose my own clothes. If I look nice, the Hub picked them for me. Despite all this, I am a little vain. This photograph is from 2003. I had to go back that far to find one of me that I liked. But I don’t really care: my husband still thinks I’m beautiful and if he doesn’t, he loves me enough to lie about it. I’m lucky. I have two boys. They never lie to me. Still, you can't have everything.

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